Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator World Championship 2009 Review

An all-new, fully-featured adventure in the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe that leaves any concerns about past franchise titles in the dust.

"Pick up the pace and do something truly new next time, Konami. Don't make the dedicated fans buy the same game over and over again."

Well, they got the message.

It was a year and a half ago when I ended my review of Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2008 with those two sentences -- you can go back and read the whole thing if you like, but my opinion in summary was that the game was too similar to its predecessor, the 2007 Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship game, and that more should have been done to make the new sequel distinct. It didn't have a story mode, it hadn't made many changes. It was still a solid game thanks to the '07 title being so well done, but it seemed like a quick turn-around cash-in with a new year number slapped on the box.

5D's is the latest spin-off of the base Yu-Gi-Oh! brand, and it's a series that's all about speed. In this futuristic vision of the card-crazed world, the popular collecting-and-battling card game Duel Monsters that the franchise is built around has been kicked into hyperdrive -- by combining it with, oddly enough, high-speed motorcycle racing. Futuristic motorcycles, on hazard-filled tracks. Like F-Zero, or Wipeout.

Bike racing and card battling, together at last.

The main character of the show is a fellow by the name of Yusei Fudou, a guy who's trying to overcome his poverty-stricken childhood experience living in the slums of the low-class Satellite district and make it as one of the famous motorcycle-driving Turbo Duelists living in the high-class Neo Domino City. He's set back in his ambitions when his best friend Jack betrays him, steals his bike and his best card, and leaves him back in the dust of the slums without a second thought. But viewers of the show know that Yusei's able to pick himself up, dust himself off and exact some card-battling revenge on his old buddy.

The new Wii title, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Wheelie Breakers, picks up at around this point and bases its gameplay on a version of the combination of racing and dueling that the cartoon showcases both Yusei and Jack competing in. This DS title, though, takes a different turn -- it casts you as an all-new character, starting off in the slums of Satellite just like Yusei did and offering an RPG-like Story Mode that has your hero (whom you customize and name) finding and befriending characters from the show, recovering lost memories to overcome the (admittedly cliched) amnesia that afflicts him at the story's start, and doing lots and lots of dueling.

If you've played Pokemon Colosseum or Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness on the GameCube, you'll have a good sense of what the Story Mode feels like -- it most reminds me of those titles, with its fully 3D environment exploration, conversations with non-player characters and light puzzle-solving. It's an impressive adventure -- not because it's all that complicated or grand in scope in the end, but because it's there at all. The '07 and '08 World Championship Yu-Gi-Oh! games had no storylines whatsoever, and this one's giving us not only a full adventure, but one that's comparable to first-party Nintendo console RPGs? Sold.

It's certainly still a Yu-Gi-Oh! design, though, even given its similar vibe to those Pokemon games -- because the combat is all about playing the Duel Monsters card game. You come across several road-blocking opponents on your quest to recover your memories and make it out of the Satellite district and back to the City, and each one won't let you pass until you've bested him or her in a round of card-battling. This aspect has both positives and negatives.

It's positive in that the wide variety of opponents, decks and strategies you're forced to overcome really showcase the depth of the Duel Monsters game design -- you're seriously challenged and have to be skillful and strategic to be able to defeat all the trick and techniques that come against you.

It's negative, though, in that Duel Monsters games can take a long while to play out. When you fought an enemy in Pokemon Colosseum, your battles went for just a couple of rounds -- you chose a Super Effective attack or two, blasted the bad guy's Rattata or Zubat, and moved on. A fairly quick pace overall, even if there were lots of enemies to beat in a row.